Science at the White House

A Political Liability

Edward J. Burger Jr.

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781421434544
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Originally published in 1980. In 1973 the US president's Office of Science and Technology was eliminated, a victim of its own incongruity. It was not, as was popularly proclaimed at the time, simply because the Nixon administration was particularly hostile to the scientific and academic communities. It was eliminated, argues physician-scientist Edward J. Burger Jr., because the office had tried to do its job too well—and had become a political liability. Science at the White House takes a critical look at the role of science advisers to the president and recounts the many conflicts that occurred as science and politics converged. Burger draws on his own six years of experience in the White House Office of Science and Technology in the 1970s. His book is filled with firsthand descriptions of the government's handling of such issues as national health care, environmental regulation, population control, and biomedical research.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Copyright Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Don K. Price
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Science Advice for the President: A Perspective
• 3. National Health Policy
• 4. Health-Related Research and Development
• 5. The Environment, Health, and Regulation to Protect Health
• 6. Population and Family Planning
• 7. Some Additional Issues
• 8. Summing Up
• Appendix A. Report of the Domestic Council Health Policy Review Group
• Appendix B. The White House: Press Release February 18, 1971
• Appendix C. Proposal for PSAC Panel on Biological and Medical Science
• Notes
• Index